Oh the joy in those words! Oh to sing them full throated and robustly and sincerely, to sing them with choir and voices of praise and celebration!

That is a joy easily forgotten in the course of a worldly year. So badly, I at least, need the reminder of salvation and triumph, triumph of the gift of Love incarnated in the most preposterous places and improbable form.

The Christos enters, and we sing of triumph eternal, triumph still well hidden in the world’s grim condition,
but oddly enough triumph enabled by the world’s grim condition.

The Love that radiates from highest heights of Heaven is pale and wan, with nothing over which to triumph.

No, the glory of the Christmas Love arises out of the dung and blood – the fear and pain – the conflict and combat. This is Love triumphant, Love so bright it can shine through the rubble and debris of the human world.

We do not need the pale suffusing Light of the angels in their perfect realms. We need a Light sharp and penetrating, a Light insistent and demanding, a Light that can undo even our stubborn clinging to darkness.

Let there be Light, Light unquenchable, Light that can illuminate even battlefields and boardrooms.

Let there be Light that even the marketers and manipulators, that even politicians and presidents, that even the priests and pugilists cannot extinguish.

Let there be Light, Light bright and startling and arresting, Light unafraid to speak Truth and assault the darkness, Light in a baby’s eyes in the cold and dark and dung of real life.